Light cycle oil (hereinafter, called “LCO”), which is cracked diesel oil produced using a fluid catalytic cracking (hereinafter, called “FCC”) unit, contains a large amount of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and has been utilized as diesel oil or fuel oil. However, in recent years, investigations have been conducted to obtain high value-added monocyclic aromatic hydrocarbons having 6 to 8 carbon atoms (for example, benzene, toluene, xylene, ethylbenzene and the like) that can be utilized as high-octane gasoline base materials or petrochemical starting materials, from the LCO.
For example, Patent Documents 1 to 3 suggest methods for producing a monocyclic aromatic hydrocarbon from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that are contained in a large amount in LCO or the like, by using a zeolite catalyst.